Volume 1 - CH 1.1

Chapter 1: A Beautiful Foreign Student And A Cute Silver-Haired Young Girl

“―Charlotte Bennett. You can just call me Charlotte if you like.”

To put it bluntly, I fell in love with her at first sight.

She had an elegant gesture that showed a hint of cuteness and compassion.

Her hair was long and straight, shining silver and beautiful.

A cute smile that oozed friendliness.

Her voice was clear and also pleasant to listen to.

All of them were the very essence of my ideal girl.

Probably everyone, regardless of their gender, would immediately fall in love with her if they saw her for the first time.

In fact, all of my classmates were mesmerized by her elegant looks.

At the next recess, she would be immediately surrounded by our classmates.

She had that kind of flair.

“I look forward to working with you all.”

She looked around the classroom as if to check everyone’s faces, and then bowed deeply.

When I was staring at Charlotte,

“―Hey, Akihito. We were lucky, weren’t we?”

My best friend Akira Saionji, who was sitting behind me, gave me an insight.

I’ve known Akira ever since we were in elementary school, and we’ve become what you might call close friends.

Akira is an active youth soccer player with a short sportsman’s haircut, and his face is so neat that he has been scouted as a model.

He is also good at socializing, in which he can get along with people he has never met before, and is willing to do anything to make things interesting.

There’s no way that such a handsome guy with excellent communication skills wouldn’t be adored by everyone.

If I recall correctly, he also had a lot of fans from other schools.

However, the problem with Akira is that when he’s with a girl he likes, he steps on the gas too much and the girl pulls away from him.

Unfortunately, he’s never had a girlfriend because of this, but if I tell him about it, he’ll probably notice and stop.

―But still, lucky, huh…?

I pondered the words of my good friend who was in a good mood.

After the summer break of the First-years, it might be considered lucky that such a beautiful girl came to study abroad.

But that’s only if I can get close to her.

And I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to.

“Yeah, you’re right.”

But I didn’t say anything about the negative thoughts that had just crossed my mind, and I agreed with Akira.

I’m sure Akira will make a move on Charlotte-san after this.

Akira’s proactive nature is one of his strong points, even if he often fails because he rushes into things without thinking.

“Do you think she has a boyfriend?”

“Well, if you think about it normally, I guess she does. She’s so cute.”

“Hey now, let’s hope that she doesn’t have a boyfriend.”

Akira tried to make it sound like she didn’t have a boyfriend.

I wanted to tell him to stop asking me, but I guess he wanted someone to agree with him.

People like to make friends, I guess.

“Then why don’t you just ask her?”

From the way she was acting, we could guess to a certain extent, but it was not necessarily correct.

So no matter how much we speculate here, it’s pointless, and there’s no way to know the answer except to ask her.

But still―

“You’re right, too! Hey, Charlotte-san, do you have a boyfriend right now!?”

I meant to ask her privately later, but Akira, who always accelerates things when he’s with a girl he’s interested in, asked boldly in front of a crowd.

“Fueh!?”

Because of this, when Charlotte-san was suddenly asked if she had a boyfriend, her face instantly turned bright red.

Then she began to fidget shyly, covering her mouth with her hands and opening her mouth shyly.

“A-A boyfriend…? I-I don’t have one, I guess…?”

Charlotte-san replied with a slight upturn in her eyes.

With those words that she replied, the classroom instantly became lively.

Well, it was mainly the boys who were excited, but that made Charlotte-san hide her face even more embarrassed.

“Hey, Saionji! Ask her when it’s just the two of you!”

Of course, if he asked such a question, sensei would be angry with him.

“Or rather, you’ve been making too much noise during homeroom for a while now!”

The homeroom teacher, Miyu-sensei, seemed to have noticed that we had been chatting during homeroom and started to get angry, bringing up the matter as well.

Miyu-sensei is a beautiful woman, but she has a short temper and acts very much like a man.

Between you and me, that’s why she’s a little late to the race.

She seems to be concerned about it and gets very, very frightening whenever she hears about it.

“Why is it just me? Akihito was also talking too!”

“It’s because you’re loud and annoying! If you have a problem with that, then don’t be so obvious like Aoyanagi!”

I retract my previous statement.

Miyu-sensei, you’re the best.

“Ehhhh!? Is it okay for a teacher to say something like that!?”

“You can’t scold what you can’t notice! It’s your fault for asking such a question in the first place! I’m going to give you a lecture later, including your daily activities!”

“Noooooooooooooo~!”

Akira’s almost screaming voice made the class burst into laughter.

Akira is really a great guy.

He may not agree with it, but Akira’s presence is enough to make the class feel at ease.

He’s already the perfect mood maker.

“Oh―”

When I was laughing at Akira, who was still lamenting, my eyes met Charlotte-san’s, who was laughing while her face turned red.

This made me feel awkward and I tried to look away, but Charlotte-san smiled at me before I could, and I couldn’t help but admire her.

I could feel my body temperature rise just from her smiling at me.

A little while later, the exchange between Miyu-sensei and the others ended with Akira giving up, and Charlotte-san’s self-introduction resumed.

“I came to Japan for my parents’ reasons, but I love Japan as much as I love England, so I’m very much happy to be here.”

Charlotte-san told us about her love for Japan with a very cute smile on her face as she tucked her hair behind her ear with her right hand.

I often hear about foreigners who love Japan, and apparently she’s no different.

Most of my classmates seemed to be more interested in her smile than her words, though.

“Oh, she’s really cute as h*ll…”

Akira behind me was smirking sloppily.

Well, I guess it can’t be helped.

You can’t help but notice how cute Charlotte-san is.

I looked at my classmates who were looking at Charlotte-san with delirious expressions on their faces, then listened to Charlotte-San’s words and thought about it.

I’ve known other beautiful girls, but I’ve never had a classmate like Charlotte-san who was exactly what I was looking for.

I had no idea that there was someone who looked exactly like her.

The world really is a big place.

―As I thought about this, I turned my gaze to the clear blue sky that I could see from my classroom window.